In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of intelligence operations against the United States; years later, living in Britain, he was able to retrieve his extensive notebooks, from which the authors have constructed this remarkable, sometimes shocking historical account. Their book resolves a number of long-seething controversies—among them, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence for years, that journalist I.F. Stone did work for the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer never was recruited by Soviet intelligence. It also uncovers numerous American spies who were never under suspicion, and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted-for American nuclear spies.

"This work should serve as the final salvo in the long battle between those who are still in denial regarding KGB espionage in America in the 1930s and 40s and those who assert that this story must be told."—David Murphy